CV and mad panic behaviour

[ElwoodBlues1]

I recall that when we all (warning: another tired Navy story!) lined up for a barrage of inoculations at recruit school (HMAS Cerberus) there was an expectation that a small number of blokes would react badly, some even hospitalised, and would subsequently not be able to join. We received yellow fever, TB, smallpox and another I forget all in one go. Apparently a few young blokes per year would end up in a critical condition or worse.

The point of this missive is that there was one inoculation (vaccination) where every one had a test for tolerance... a tiny injection under the skin of the forearm (underside) to test reaction (think it was smallpox, maybe TB). If a small watery blister came up in a few days you would good to go for the major injection. If not, you were discharged as the major injection would be very problematic. I wonder if a tiny, test dose could be used for Covid variants and other future nasty viruses to ascertain some level of suitability?

TB...we had them at primary school, the blister/lump meant you got the big needle and a round scar down the track.
A couple of kids in our class didn't get the blister...we had our school milk in the morning as usual and a few kids managed to puke that up after getting the needle.
And as usual the school milk had been left outside in the sun and was in no condition to drink but we all had to finish our little bottles...